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Kiran siding with ‘tainted’ Ministers, says Modugula

‘They are committing a serious act of impropriety’

Narsaraopet MP Modugula Venugopala Reddy on Thursday said that tainted Ministers should have been shown the door by Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, but he chose to retain them in the Cabinet due to fear that the government would collapse.

Mr. Kiran Kumar Reddy openly pleaded with Home Minister P. Sabitha Indra Reddy not to resign in the wake of the CBI filing a charge-sheet against her in YSR Congress president Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy’s disproportionate assets case. He adopted a similar approach in the case of another Cabinet colleague Dharmana Prasada Rao too.

Unfortunately, Agriculture Minister Kanna Lakshmi Narayana, who was also one of the Ministers to whom the Supreme Court had sent notices for their alleged role in the issue of 26 controversial GOs, told Ms. Sabitha Indra Reddy that she need not quit the Cabinet in haste.

“By their actions, Mr. Kiran Kumar Reddy and his Ministers have committed a serious act of impropriety,” he alleged. Addressing mediapersons at the district TDP office here, Mr. Venugopala Reddy said the Chief Minister went to Delhi and held parleys with the Prime Minister and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi over the issue of the CBI filing charge-sheets against Ministers knowing fully well that it was a matter pertaining to the State. The Chief Minister could have either got the names of his Ministers removed from the CBI charge-sheets since the investigative agency acted as per the whims and fancies of the Congress or made them resign as they were supposed to own up moral responsibility, he said.

Liquor menace

Mr. Venugopala Reddy sought to know who should shoulder the responsibility for offences committed by drunken men, as it happened in the Tenali incident. Persons committing crimes in an inebriated condition should certainly be punished, but what about the State which was encouraging people to drink liquor in such a brazen manner? That being the trend, why should a case not be booked against the Chief Minister owing vicarious liability, Mr. Venugopala Reddy questioned.